How was I Supposed to Know it was Cursed?

Elizabeth is locked up all alone. Ragetti and Pintel come into the room, carrying a dress.

Pintel: You'll be dinin' with the captain, and he wants you to wear this.

Pintel holds out the dress.

Elizabeth: It's ugly, so you may tell the captain that I am disinclined to aquiest to his request.

Pintel: The captain, bein' precognitive an' all, knew you'd say that, and he said to tell you that if that be the case, you'll be dinin' with the crew, and you'll be naked.

Elizabeth snatches the dress from Pintel.

Pintel: Fine.

Ragetti and Pintel leave, pouting.

Elizabeth and Barbossa sit down to dinner at a large table. Food is laid out and everything looks very formal. Elizabeth begins to eat like a starving cave man.

Barbossa: Don't you have any manners?

Elizabeth starts eating in a more proper way. Barbossa offers her a goblet of wine.

Barbossa: Try the wine.

Elizabeth tries the wine. Barbossa offers her an apple.

Barbossa: And the apples, one of those next.

Elizabeth suddenly stops eating.

Elizabeth: It's poisoned.

Barbossa: Poisoned apples, really? That was so Snow White.

Elizabeth: Then let me go. You have the medallion, what more do you want?

Barbossa holds up the medallion.

Barbossa: Do you know what this is?

Elizabeth: Well, duh. It's the medallion I gave you.

Barbossa rolls his eyes.

Barbossa: I know that. Work with me, huh? To make a long story short, Cortes ticked off the wrong Aztec gods, and they put a curse on the gold he stole. So now anyone else who tries to steal it gets cursed too.

Elizabeth: Baloney.

Barbossa: Yeah, I wish. Anyway, this treasure was supposed to be hidden. But we found it, and stole it, and spent it. Then we figured out, oops, the Aztecs weren't kidding. We are cursed men.

The monkey starts freaking out over in the corner. Barbossa rolls his eyes and turns to the monkey.

Barbossa: Cursed men AND monkeys. There, are you happy now?

The monkey calms down. Elizabeth hides a butter knife in her lap before Barbossa looks back at her. Barbossa turns back to Elizabeth.

Barbossa: Where was I? Oh, yes. We are cursed men-and-monkey. There is only one way to end the curse. Guess what it is.

Elizabeth: I give up.

Barbossa: We must return every single piece of stolen gold, and pay a blood sacrifice. Thanks to you, we've got all the pieces.

Elizabeth: And the blood sacrifice?

Barbossa: Bingo.

Elizabeth pulls out the knife and stabs Barbossa in the chest. Barbossa rolls his eyes at her, and pulls the knife out of his chest.

Barbossa: Didn't you listen?

Elizabeth: Uhh...

Elizabeth runs out onto the deck, and sees all the pirates looking like zombie skeletons. She runs around trying to avoid them, finally hiding under a staircase. Then the cursed monkey shows up and scares her away and she runs into Barbossa.

Barbossa: Check it out. The moonlight makes us look freakishly awesome. We're not living, so we can't exactly die, but we're not dead, hence the walking around and stuff. It's really an unfortunate conundrum. Can't feel anything either, which is lame.

Barbossa reaches a hand out towards Elizabeth to demonstrate the wonders of CGI.

Barbossa: How's that for baloney?

Barbossa takes a bottle of wine and pulls the cork out with his teeth. Then he proceeds to drink the wine so it falls through his ribcage to the ground. Elizabeth runs and hides. Barbossa and his crew laugh.

Barbossa: What? Haven't you ever seen a perfectly normal man turn into a decaying skeletal zombie before? Get back to work.

Revised edition 2011!